Stop (Just) Surviving
by SkyStroller
Summary: If there was one thing Emma was sure of, it was that she'd always survive. However, surviving and living are two very different things. The first time she really stopped surviving was when she met and fell for Neal Cassidy. The second? Well...


**This started out as a 750-words-per-day exercise, but developed into something I became quite fond of. A little bit on the sad side, but don't worry, it's not a tragedy.**

**This takes place in season 3a, right after releasing Neal from the Echo Caves. I guess you could say this is Emma's subconscious inner monologue. In... third person. Maybe Emma just likes to narrate her own past?**

**Let me know if you liked it! There's definitely more where that came from.**

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><p>If there was one thing Emma was sure of, it was that she'd always survive. However, surviving and living are two very different things, as she had found out the harsh way.<p>

She had been surviving ever since birth. She was born to become a survivor. Her parents, who had left her in the woods that fateful day, made sure of it. And Emma was fine with that.

Until she met the handsome Neal Cassidy, with his cunning ways and sweet words, that is. He took her to the most unorthodox dates in places they weren't supposed to be at, with cheap coffee and heartwarming entertainment. But it wasn't always glamorous and tasting of sweet mischief.

Spending their lives on the run meant having to take the best out of even the smallest of moments. Or the busiest of them. She couldn't even count all the "dates" spent shoplifting and hiding from angry owners in sheds and behind alleys.

That's just how life was like loving Neal Cassidy. And she thought it was as close to her fairy tale ending as things got, especially when she found out she was pregnant and he agreed to move to Tallahassee with her. She thought she had actually found a man who loved her _and_ was willing to settle down with her and take care of their- _their child_, especially considering what life they both had been leading before then.

Yes. While Emma Swan had loved Neal Cassidy, they had been living, not just surviving.

And then it ended. Of course, she knows now that there was a better (not good, _never good_) reason for it happening, (for him _choosing_ to do it,) but that doesn't change the fact that it did happen, the way that it did, leaving her thinking what she did, leaving her hurting like she did, dying like she did and starting to survive again, like she had.

She built up her walls, hid away her heart and locked it up somewhere dark and cold where nothing could reach it. She may as well have ripped it out altogether.

But that didn't mean she wasn't hurting. No, closing off her heart only meant she could avoid worsening her wounds. It didn't mean she had healed. How could she possibly heal, having experienced what she did.

In fact, Emma realized once, she reveled in the pain. She loved it. It reminded her of what the world was really like. She lived in a world without happy endings, and that was just the way things were.

Her son finding her helped. Finding her parents helped. That's what their family did. They found each other. But it was only part of her pain that was healed.

Yes, she no longer had the pain of giving up Henry, because she saw now that despite being raised by the Not-So-Evil-After-All Queen, he had grown up having everything she had ever wanted for him. It didn't erase the years of his growth she had missed, the regret of having lost so many special moments, but although the scar her decision had left could _never_ disappear, her wound had closed and she no longer bled.

And yes, she no longer had the pain of being abandoned by her parents, because she knew now why they did it and she understood, for didn't she do the same for Henry? It took her a while, but they got around it, and although it's nearly impossible to think of herself as anything but an orphan right now, she is willing to, trying to. It didn't erase the years of agony spent without family, being passed around with little more importance than a sack of sand, so although the scar their decision had left could never disappear, her wound had closed and she no longer bled.

However, they didn't cause the hole in her heart that made her stop living and start surviving. Therefore they had no way of fixing it. They knew it, but they still tried, and she loved them for it. However, there was just no way she could heal, not after what happened to Neal. With Neal.

He died for a while. He took away her chance at closure. (And her chance of moving past her Anger Stage.) He froze her wound in an eternal sate of rawness, and even though he had survived after all and come back, _for her_ and _Henry_, there was no going back.

He had already died in her heart, and she had already frozen her wound. And she still loved him, _she did_. But he just wasn't her True Love anymore. Henry was. Henry was her family, and so were Mary Margaret and David, and there was no need to mess up an already great thing.

She loved him, she always would, but she didn't _need_ him - not like she used to. And although (go figure) it was easier for her to think she did, she didn't.

It was easier for her to pretend she didn't notice the way her heart rate increased whenever she looked at _him_. To pretend she didn't care when _he_ stared her down and licked _his_ lips in that scandalizing way of _his_ (or maybe that was just her reacting really strongly). To pretend she didn't hurt when _he_ hurt, when _he_ tried to drown out the grief (which they shared) with rum. To pretend _he_ wasn't a special existence to her.

Except _he was_.

And just like there was no going back from Neal Cassidy's betrayal and apparent death, there was no going back from _Killian Jones'_ knowing eyes and similarly broken heart. There was no hiding from him. He was right. He could read her like a book, because he was just like her.

They had lived in different times, in different realms, lived different lives, met different people, broken in different ways - yet they met and discovered they were the same.

And although it will take her a long time to give up and give in and stop ignoring the elephant in her heart, she will still take comfort in his closeness and solace in his smiles, and play with his hair in an attempt to soothe him when everyone else is asleep and he's having nightmares, and steal his rum (and possibly his heart), and drown herself in his bottomless blue eyes, and even _kiss him_ if she damn well pleases, because she can ignore and refuse to admit her_ own_ feelings as mush as she pleases, but she doesn't want to ignore _his_.

If there was one thing Emma was once sure of, it was that she'd always survive. However, Killian Jones was threatening to throw even that little bit of sureness out the window.

She never said she minded, though. About time she stopped _surviving_.


End file.
